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Former Presidency students liken recent campus violence to the turbulent 70s

The recent violence at Presidency University brings memories of a turbulent erstwhile Presidency College of the late 60s and early 70s to scholars who were students at the College Street campus at that time.

TNN | Updated: Apr 26, 2013, 10:43 IST

KOLKATA: The recent violence at Presidency University brings memories of a turbulent erstwhile Presidency College of the late 60s and early 70s to scholars who were students at the College Street campus at that time. They fear that this might once again open the floodgates of campus unrest at Presidency, as was routine during their student days.
When the 1971 batch of students entered the campus as it re-opened after being forcefully shut down for nearly 9 months, they found themselves caught in a vortex.

Fresh outbursts between the radical leftist students and their leaders who would camp inside the college were routine. Students who were suspected to be anti-left were spotted and beaten up brutally on campus. "I still remember the day when eminent teacher of physical chemistry, Mihir Chowdhury, was beaten up inside the classroom and he was forced to stay out of the campus for nearly a year. We simply stared in shock and disbelief!" said former director of Indian Association for the Cultivation of Science, Kankan Bhattacharyya.

He was a student at Presidency between 1971-78. He still rues the fact that the entire batch that studied with him lost two years in campus violence. That was the time when a large number of the best of Presidency scholars left Bengal in search of places like Delhi and Kanpur to avoid political violence. Libraries were vandalised and exams were held without teacher invigilation causing mass cheating and brighter students lost marks that finally affected their careers.

"All that Mihir babu did was asked naxal students not to write posters inside the classroom. Those days any student who wished to file his nomination in college elections against the naxals were roughed up and forced to stay away from campus," he added.

One of the topmost physical chemistry scholars of the country, Biman Bagchi, is keeping a tab of the goings on in his "college campus" from IISc Bangalore, where he is a senior faculty. "Baker laboratory is like a place of worship for students like us who owe their academic existence to Presidency. It sends a chill down my spine to hear of the laboratory being vandalised because it brings back vignettes of libraries of the college being attacked by students of one political standing or another backed by outsiders. We would stand and watch helplessly as books went up in flame," he said.

Scholars remember that between 1968 and 1973, the college would be open for a few days, violence would inevitably erupt, books, furniture, cupboards and of course students and teachers would come under attack and then the college would close for months again. "Between 1970-71, the college would be open for practically a couple of days and close for several months post armed violence. We were extremely scared and studies suffered because no classes happened. I still remember how I compared with my friends in St Xavier’s and found how much I lagged behind!" Bagchi recalls.

Between 1969 and 74 pitched battle between the ultra leftists and the Congress-backed Chhatra Parishad reached such a peak that police and CRPF had to be posted inside the campus. "Any student inside the campus was within the range of a pointed 303 rifle. Bombing inside the campus was routine and it injured both cops and students alike. I still remember how a group of students attacked the Baker laboratory one day and likened it to the Fall of the Bastille!," remembers economist and senior faculty member of IIM Calcutta, Anup Sinha.

The Presidency University Alumni Association has convened an emergency meeting next week to pass a resolution to declare College Street political meeting and rally free. "The education hub of the city has ironically also become a zone of politocal unrest. Most political meetings, demonstrations and processions start there. This should stop and we will appeal to the state government to take some legislative steps to make this possible," said association secretary, Bivas Chowdhury.

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